RT Journal
T1 IMpressions versus facts in the treatment of pneumonia
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1919
FD July 19
VO 73
IS 3
SP 193
OP 194
DO 10.1001/jama.1919.02610290035016
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1919.02610290035016
AB The value of any method of treatment, whether developed empirically or by a long and laborious course of scientific reasoning and experiment, must rest finally on the outcome of its application to clinical medicine. Furthermore, the analysis of clinical results, either statistical or derived from observations of symptomatology, must also be scientifically controlled. On passing from the laboratory to the clinic, the obligation of scientific accuracy is increased rather than diminished, and with the decrease in control over the individual elements of the experiment, the need for caution in interpretation of results increases proportionately. If the case mortality of a given disease were regularly 100 per cent., and if by the use of a remedy the mortality were regularly reduced to 50 per cent., the number of cases necessary to establish the clinical value of the remedy would be many times smaller than if the untreated case mortality were, say,